1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns the defrosting and baking of frozen convenience pies with top and bottom crusts in a microwave oven and it concerns a novel baking utensil and novel heating elements for microwave cooking.
2. Description of Prior Art
To achieve the versatility of microwave cooking that is expected in gas and electric cooking, a microwave oven must be supplied with as many different type and size cooking utensils as are available for gas and electric cooking. Microwave oven cooking utensils should be specially designed to capitalize on microwave energy 's special characteristics and desirable cooking features. Numerous microwave cooking containers have been developed for microwave cooking, for example, my U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,539,751; 3,701,872; 3,731,037; 3,777,099; 3,985,990; 3,985,991; and 4,027,132.
My U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,037 teaches how to bake pies and how to employ a microwave-lossy, heat-insulating baking chamber to brown food. My U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,991 teaches using the latent heat of vaporization evolved from selectively heating one part of a food to heat a second part of said food. My U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,701,872 and 3,777,099 teach (1) how to use microwave-lossy heating elements in conjunction with metal cooking utensils and (2) ways of shielding condensed water and rendered by-products from further heating in a microwave oven in competition with a heating article. My U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,990 teaches how to trap evolved hot vapors evaporated from a food product by exposure to microwave energy and how to condense said hot vapor and thereby return its latent heat of vaporization to a heating system. Others, as in U.S. Pat. 2,714,070, have described apparatus which shields one area of an article from microwave exposure so as to provide selective heating of said article.
My U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,132, Microwave Pie Baking, concerns the baking of pies with full top and bottom crusts by employing a different structure than is here taught. This previous Microwave Pie Baking invention requires a two step operation (i.e. midway turning pie over and inserting said half baked pie in its paper pie plate into a metal pie plate) objectionable and complicated to some cooks.